Protection would be painting it with ultra deep tint base(no color added)---that is actually clear paint. It is milky when applied and dries completely clear. Several folks here have tried it with varying degrees of success.

If I understand correctly, you want to keep the old character of the wood, even on the fresh cut edges.

Here's how I did a headboard with pine boards that were taken from the exterior of an old barn.

First pic is the boards as I pulled them out of the wood racks. White paint, some flaking off.

Tested for lead, then I used a stiff brush to remove loose dirt. Made my cuts and assembled the panels and the boards.

Pic of the major assembly done. I only sanded enough to remove all loose paint and feather some edges. I also roughed up the exposed edges of fresh cuts with a brass wire wheel chucked into my drill. Then I coated the whole thing with iron acetate (steel wool and vinegar) mixture to darken the wood, particularly the fresh cut edges.

Then I wiped on three coats of minwax poly. I knew the poly would help yellow the white paint, but what I didn't know was that the iron acetate would also throw in a "rusting iron cast" to the edges, most noticeably around the flaws in the wood. For us, that was a bonus. It continued to get progressively darker over the course of a few weeks. Pic of the finished headboard in place:

Dave, if you are only talking about making the cut edges match the original uncleaned face sides, that should not be a problem. Get some dyes that are close, you will want a few so you can customize the shading. Start a little lighter than you want, and just brush it on. If you focus too closely on what you are doing, you will think it won't match at all, but if you stand back, you will see a ton of variation in the old wood , so you want to just get somewhere between the lightest and darkest tones in the old wood, and make it non uniform, and it should be fine.

If your wood has a gray color, I have added black latex paint to water untill I get a match. It was really watered down but worked quite well. I imagine you could use whatever color works best. You can buy 1 ounce colors at a craft store at a reasonable price if you need to experiment

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